SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics

SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics are a great choice for a beginner. All of the SoHo Urban Artist products so far advertise artist grade quality at student grade prices. I received the 24 color Value Set of 21ml tubes for review. Normal price is $19.99 at Jerry's Artarama, currently the set is on sale for $12.99 - so they really mean it. These are definitely student grade prices.

I'm happy to report that the quality of the paint is pretty good - incredible at those prices. It's not as runny as some other bargain brand acrylics that I've tried in the past. The colors are consistent, the named hues like Cadmium Yellow Medium are a good match for the toxic mineral pigments they replace and they handle the same as several other brands of acrylics I've tried. Some of the pricier artist grade acrylics do beat the SoHo pigment concentration, but not by so much that they're unworkable.

Mixing quality is excellent, very comparable to Liquitex. All colors are also available separately in 75ml and 250ml tubes plus 500ml jars. The 21ml small tubes in the Value Set are best for miniature painters, artists who want to try a wide variety of pigments at a very low price and plein air painters. They're handy if you want to just choose a primary triad or a half dozen colors, tuck them in your pocket and head outdoors to paint.

Like all acrylics, they dry quickly. They will mix with any brand of acrylic gloss or matte medium for glazing, while it's very easy to create washes with additional water. I haven't tried the specialty mediums like slow-dry or impasto paste mixed with these but I trust they'll behave like other acrylics if I do.

If you buy this set as an introductory set for a new painter, definitely also purchase a 75ml tube of Titanium White. There isn't an extra white tube in the 24 color Value Set - but then, there isn't in the Liquitex intro sets either. If you're thinking of gifts, Jerry's also has a Really Complete Painting Set including this 24 color set of tubes plus painting boards, brushes, table easel, gloss and gel mediums, painting knives, painting palette and plastic double dip mediums, paper palette and instructional DVD for $79.99 - the bundle set is a bargain for all the supplies included so if you want to gift a relative with a new hobby, that might be the way to go. I'd still slip in a 75ml tube of Titanium White with it so that they don't scowl at the white running out before they finish the second or third painting.

The other type of painter who might really enjoy the SoHo Urban Artist acrylics is a muralist. 500ml jars are good big supplies and the 49 color range is extensive. You can stick to a small palette of favorites or splurge and try new colors without spending a bundle - even the big jars are only $7.99 on average.

Plastic painting knives and an acrylic spray bottle are accessories available under the same brand, modestly priced and useful. Any brand of gloss or matte gel mediums should work with these for hobby projects or serious artworks. If you work on a big scale, these can be a good choice.

The lids went back on the plastic tubes easily. None of the tubes were damaged and it was very easy to remove paint clots from the threads if I left a tube a little too long before closing.

If you're interested in doing hobby projects with liquid acrylics, just add a little water to the paint when you've spread it into your palette or picnic plate. This is a good brand to experiment with one-stroke methods and other hobby projects. They're bright, they're sturdy, they'll introduce you to handling both opaque and transparent paints and of course, soap and water cleanup is standard for any acrylics.

Be sure to keep brushes moist when working with any brand of acrylic paints. If acrylic dries in your brush, it's very difficult or even impossible to remove without damaging the hairs. Rather than putting your brush hair down in your water jar, squeeze the paint out on a rag or paper towel, rinse thoroughly and lay the brush flat on a paper towel or change colors.

Acrylic paints are tougher on brush hairs than watercolors, so don't use expensive sable watercolor rounds with these. You'll find synthetic sable or stiff synthetic bristle brushes work best with heavy body acrylics depending on the effect you want. Pick up a bag of synthetic brushes in a variety of sizes and shapes if you're just starting out, experiment to find which ones suit your style best. Miniature brushes work very well with SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics.

If you're an ACEO painter, these may be a brilliant choice to start getting into acrylics. Either get some ATC blanks in acrylic paper, or cut them to size from a canvas or canva-paper pad. Acrylics work well on watercolor paper or on gessoed canvas.

My example painting is on a Stillman & Birn Beta journal page, 180lb extra heavy watercolor paper, bright white. These are great acrylics for art journaling. The small tubes, strong pigments, variety of pigments and hues and their clean ease of use make them a wonderful choice. Drawings and sketches sealed with acrylic washes are waterproof, glazes and washes can also make a barrier layer for adding other media over them such as oil pastels.

I didn't gesso the journal page. Some artists do, but the sizing in the S&B Beta journal was strong enough that I didn't need to. The painting on the other side of the page was completely undisturbed - another sign that these medium-heavy body paints are a better grade than others in their price category. I have seen some pretty nasty student grade acrylics that separated, turned into goo, smelled funny when you open the tube or were so runny and thin that they might as well be washes right from the tube.

While they're not up with Daniel Smith or Winsor & Newton, these compare favorably with Liquitex and are way, way beyond anything else as cheap as they go. Good intro to a rewarding medium. Pick them up for a lark, you'll get a great range for a pocket money price. Definitely fantastic for hobbyists, students, big scale painters, sign painting, illustrators, art journals, ACEO painters and anyone else who wants to find out what acrylics can do!

SoHo Urban Artist Gouache

When I reviewed my Ebony Splendor Brights brushes, I didn't realize that I hadn't already reviewed the SoHo Urban Artist Gouache that I tested them with. I used them with the SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics but didn't post that example - only the gouache painting I did with them. Well, here it is again in context.



This is an example of the kind of subtle mixing and texturing possible with SoHo Urban Artist Gouache. The set's regular price at Jerry's Artarama is $9.99 for 12 big 30ml pots of rich, highly pigmented designer gouache. Pigments are non-toxic and binder is gum arabic - this is traditional opaque watercolor suitable for any illustration uses, sketchbooks, art journaling, sign painting, color mixing and color theory courses, recreating medieval and Renaissance illuminations (the miniature artworks and borders in manuscripts, scrolls and documents).

Because lightfastness is not mentioned with this product, I do not recommend it for wall paintings that may be exposed to light. If you use it for those purposes, consider a UV protective varnish and glazing the painting with UV protective museum glass or acrylic. It's possible to preserve fugitive mediums and I expect the lightfastness to be better than children's products, but not up in the range of expensive artist grade gouaches like Lukas, Holbein or Winsor & Newton.

In fact, even in those top quality artist grade gouaches, it's important to check the lightfastness rating of the pigments you choose. That's only a consideration in one sort of gouache painting - those that hang framed on walls. For all other applications, this is excellent gouache and can be used for any design or illustration purpose. ACEO/ATC miniature artworks are normally kept in albums with UV-protective sleeves on them, so I don't concern myself with lightfast mediums when doing them other than to caution the buyer or recipieent that I may have used some fugitive colors. Don't display gouache paintings for a long time, store in cool dark places and enjoy.

This makes them perfect for art journaling since the bound artworks aren't exposed to light until you open the book to that page. I'd suggest using lightfast acrylics for cover decoration on art journals.

I've used gouache for decades. A good gouache is opaque but can be thinned till it behaves like watercolor, which takes a lot of water. It can be as runny as ink or used as a heavy body paint that even takes some texturing strokes with a bristle brush.

The quality and pigment load are comparable to Yarka/Richeson gouache, along with the price. Yarka's a couple of dollars more and the pots are 40ml instead of 30ml, making this set a little bit more compact. The quantity of paint for that price is excellent in both products. The mixing qualities are splendid.

The red is a good spectrum red that tints to clean magenta or rose with just a touch of violet. The blue is a spectrum blue that's very deep and dark, it reminds me of Prussian Blue and probably is. Cool it toward Ultramarine with just a touch of the deep brilliant violet. Yellow is a clean primary yellow that doesn't lean as greenish as lemon or as orange-cast as a Cadmium Yellow Medium. You can retain full saturation around the color wheel with just the colors in the set.

Three classic useful earths are included, a deep brown earth, Yellow Ochre and an iron oxide red. For landscapes it's very useful to have Iron Oxide Red as one of your hues, it'll balance the vivid greens and modulate them.

Gouache is the perfect medium for color studies. If you're a serious pastelist, it can be a wonderful underpainting medium and used by itself is the wet medium that comes closest to the effects of pastel. Use with a bristle brush to get strong textured strokes or a softer brush like the Ebony Splendor multi-media brushes when you'd rather blend smoothly.

If you're teaching a class in color theory, these inexpensive sets plus a couple of Ebony Splendor brushes are the perfect medium to have your class test mixtures, create color wheels, study any aspect of color and structure. You can mix all the secondary and tertiary hues from the primaries or use the included secondary colors to get vivid tertiaries.

Black and white allow for tints and shades to create good value map sketches in monochrome or tint and shade any color for an infinite variety of hues.

One of the advantages of Gouache is that it's rewettable. Some types of gouache reconstitute better than others if dried. You can put some of this paint into a palette and create pre-mixed colors, even if they're dried into it you can rehydrate to thin or thick texture as desired.

Just like the Yarka set of gouache that I won in the 1990s for a medieval scroll painting competition, the jars don't have a perfect seal. The paint may thicken and crack, taking on a texture more like heavy mud or even drying solid. My set was slightly dried when I got it, some colors more than others.

Light goes over dark easily. This is one of the ways it's so good for creating studies to plan pastel, acrylic or oil paintings. Dry brushing can create broken color and interesting optical mixing. Loose marbling effects are easy to achieve by not thoroughly blending mixtures - drag a brush with one color through a patch of another on your palette, swirl once and mix on the painting. There is a reason gouache is beloved by traditional art schools and design studios - it's that versatility and opacity.

Here's where the quality of SoHo Urban Artist gouache really comes in. Rehydrating dried-up pots is a slow process. Add a little water and let it sit for a few hours or overnight. This softens the surface of the dried up paint and helps it rehydrate better. Then take a paint stirrer, can be anything, plastic, metal, a popsicle stick or toothpick, and stir patiently until all lumps have been smoothed out.

I've rehydrated two of the twelve colors now and the process went quickly. The dried paint softened in only a few hours and stirring the lumps away didn't take as long as I expected. So don't throw them away if you open a jar and it's dried up. Just put some water in up to the level the paint should be at, let it settle for a few hours and gently stir. Wipe any paint off the lip of the jar when you close it and out of the threads. This will both help keep too much air from getting in and also prevent a dried-paint seal that would make it harder to open later.

Of course, the sooner you catch the paint drying out, the faster and easier it is to whip it back to creamy smoothness. Texture should be something like thick house paint at its optimum. You don't need to lose even a speck of the paint. So if you like using pan watercolors, consider putting a good dab into the wells of a small folding palette to create a portable set. It'll rewet easily out in the field too when you want to do color studies for later studio painting.

These are great. Have fun illustrating your webcomic, illuminating an award scroll for any occasion, creating ATCs, art journaling and don't worry about it if your kids or grandkids want to join in. It's safe for grownups to share these paints with smaller loved ones. If your cat walks through it, just rinse his paws off in the sink. I still wouldn't advise eating nontoxic paint but it's a very useful thing to be able to illustrate with cat and kid safe supplies!

Ebony Splendor Brushes and Derwent App

One of the most useful items in the big box of review products Jerry's Artarama sent me is a seven piece set of Ebony Splendor multi media brushes. What I tried is the Brights set, but other sets are available - Filbert, Rounds with both long and short handle sets and Wash brushes with short handles. Prices for the sets range from $19.99 to $24.99 but these are a frequent sale item. Watch for bargains up to 50% off on individual brushes or sets in this series.

These are true multi-media workhorses. I used mine with gouache, acrylics and watercolor. It doesn't matter what consistency of paint I'm using. They're soft enough for watercolor and strong enough to shove around full body acrylics. You'll get more bristle texture from a stiffer nylon brush if you want them to look more like oils, but the multi-filament structure of these brushes stood up to my tests for use with both thin bodied and heavy body paints.

When I first opened up the package, my 32 year old daughter was thrilled with this brush set. I'm ordering another set because she definitely put these on her Christmas list, especially once I opened it and we tried them with watercolors and acrylics. I want the long handled round set and the Wash Set because these are such good quality that I feel a need to expand my range.

Below is a gouache painting I did using the smaller Brights. The smallest two sizes are good miniature brushes with excellent shaping and razor edges. The size 2 looks a little more than 1/16th inch wide - more like 3/32", definitely smaller than 1/8" and still a perfectly shaped small bright. The next up size is about 1/8" and so on up the line. The biggest is a convenient 7/8" bright, one that I reach for every time I look to wet the paper or lay in a big wash.

In painting, it helps to use the largest brush you can for the area or layer you're doing. The size range in these seven brush sets is excellent for that. I can work to any size in my comfort zone. Wash brushes are 1/2", 3/4" and 1" sizes.

The wooden handles are varnished with a mtransparent burgundy finish, very distinctive, with black dipped ends. They're not scraper ends but work well enough as scrapers with how thick the black enamel is at the end, easy to wipe paint off if you use them to sign or carve lines into the paint. The grip is pleasingly shaped, though of course the handles have gradated sizes and the big giant brush is a bit wide.

I'm fond of good synthetic brushes. These may not be "the butt hairs of an exotic male weasel caught in winter" as my daughter teases me about Kolinsky brushes, but they are reasonably priced and perform beautifully.

Right now these excellent brushes are half price - $9.99 for the $19.99 sets and $11.99 for the $24.99 sets. So if you miss this sale, watch for it again. They're definitely a high quality workhorse brush. You may want to get both the long and short handle sets though, because acrylic use over time wears out brushes differently than watercolor does and if you use any of them with oils, you won't want to use that brush again with watermedia. Grabbing a lot of them on sale is a good way to get around the demands of different mediums and always have the size and shape you need.

I did not test my Ebony Splendor brushes to destruction by letting acrylic dry in the hairs. By previous experience, you can sometimes revive a gunked up brush using a good brush cleaner/conditioner soap or dishwashing liquid. But it's much better to keep them wet while they're in use and rinse them immediately with the solvent for whatever paint you're using.

They've definitely become my favorite brights. While I do finger-shape them after washing, they dry perfectly into their original shape rather than splaying out the way some natural hair brushes do when they're dry. Some sophisticated technology went into creating the mix of synthetic hairs in these brushes.

They may not last as long as a Kolinsky sable, but there are uses for old battered fuzzy brushes too. I'll add notes on their condition when they start wearing out for a home test of longevity, but so far they survived their first few months of use in pristine condition. I do use The Masters' Brush Cleaner/Conditioner on all of my brushes, synthetic or natural, so this is qualified by "when well cared for."

Any brush, if you leave it hairs end down in a jar of water, will get hopelessly mashed and bent. Even the best brushes don't survive that treatment and having gobs of dried oils or acrylic sticking the hairs together is another brush-killer. These are strong for synthetic brushes and some of my other synthetics have showed wear under the same number of uses I've put these through. Definitely a bargain for a high quality synthetic brush, especially when they're on sale. Stock up on them to always have the size and shape you need for thick or thin bodied paint.

I also recently got an iPhone4. Not the latest-best 4S but the previous latest-best that's now half price. Of course I got some drawing apps for it that I'll review in a later article after I've learned to use the new medium. I'm reviewing the Derwent App first though, because I am so fond of Derwent's products and it's so darn convenient for checking up on them.

It's got Hints and Tips videos and articles embedded in it, plenty of the sorts of fun things you can find online at Derwent's site.

Easy to navigate, it includes a bar code reader so that the unidentified black pencil that still has its sticker on it and says Derwent, you can find out what it is and what it does, whether it's lightfast, which range it is and get some hints and tips on using it easily. Very useful if you're at a store, see some colorful new product from Derwent and want to find out a lot more about it using your phone than the display tells you.

The lightfastness charts and color charts arrows direct you to the Derwent site, which you can read if you double tap the screen to zoom in to a comfortable reading size. So it's not a big library of information right within your phone if you're not online, however you can copy these charts and turn it into one if you like. The videos link to YouTube.

It's a fun little app that puts the Derwent site into your hands for convenience without having to type the link in. Also you can add your art to your personal Gallery using the app, or contribute it to the Global Gallery, surf around and see others' artwork done with Derwent products.

It's free, it's fun and easy to use, so definitely worth a download if you like using Derwent's products. Just watch your data plan usage for the videos, see if you can download them rather than watch them repeatedly on streaming.

SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics and Painting Boards

SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics are a bargain brand of heavy body acrylic paint with surprisingly good quality. Familiar pigments, consistent texture with good pigment load make these an incredible bargain at a very low price. Frugal artists, students, muralists and painters who do scenery for theatres should give these a try!

SoHo Urban Artist Acrylic paints have a good texture for heavy body acrylics. These aren’t the bottled acrylics for decorative painting, they have the texture of oils straight from the tube. Covering power is excellent on the Titanium White, though some pigments are by their nature transparent such as Dioxazine Violet.

The 24 color set provides an enormous range of choices for a new artist. The palette’s almost too generous for a beginner. Most painters will find their favorites in it. I found many of mine - Payne’s Grey, Dioxazine Violet, Sap Green, Prussian Blue as well as Pthalo Blue. My only staple pigment not represented is Permanent or Quinacridone Rose, though if I wanted a separate tube, Rose Madder is available in open stock.

Texture was the same across all colors that I used. I combined at least half of the colors in the box in my miniature, testing Yellow Ochre, Titanium White, Permanent Green Light, Sap Green, Alizarin Crimson, Dioxazine Violet, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Yellow Hue, Lemon Yellow

Toxic pigments such as Cobalt and Cadmium are represented by Hues. Pigments aren’t listed by pigment number, but all the colors are available in open stock as well as the sets. Lightfastness is not listed on the tubes. It may be able to be derived by looking up the pigments. If you’re looking for an inexpensive acrylic paint to practice or do preliminary works, the price is right and the quality is good for student grade.

After I painted the red apple with Alizarin Crimson and Cadmium Yellow Hue, I recognized that this isn’t the fugitive traditional Alizarin Crimson that’s transparent, nearly black in mass tone and has an odd brownish undertone. It’s the brilliant, cool, purple cast Permanent Alizarin or a mixture and that bodes well for the lightfastness of the set. I’m pretty sure from the actual color of the paint that it’s more like a quinacridone and so it does superbly take the place of a Quinacridone Rose in my palette.

The price on all of the SoHo Urban Artist products is remarkably low for their quality. These acrylics are no exception, they’re comparable to Liquitex and other acrylics I’ve used. The big 24 color set is a starter with sample sized 21ml tubes. It’s a great bargain for a miniaturist especially, if you don’t use up much paint at a time they’ll likely last well or if you prefer thinning them to ink consistency for watercolor-like effects.

If you prefer working larger and bolder, all colors are also available in 75ml tubes, 250 ml big tubes and a 500ml jar. Muralists will be glad to know the regular price at Jerry’s is only $9.99 for the big 500ml jar, $3.99 for the giant 250ml tube or $2.97 for the full size 75ml tube. At time of writing they're on super sale $1.49 for the 75ml tube and the larger sizes are marked down too. Watch for sales.

The 24 color Value Set is only $19.99. Jerry's also carries a complete painting set with walnut finish table easel, 5-pack of painting boards, brushes, palette knives, 24 tubes, gloss and matte mediums plus an instructional DVD for $79.99. That one might make a great gift for a friend or relative who's interested in taking up painting. Non toxic hues and water cleanup mean the set's safe to purchase for your kids or grandkids.

Watch for sale prices if you’re planning a big project. These inexpensive good quality acrylics may be just the thing to paint large on canvases, walls, gessoed masonite or any other type of acrylic painting surface. Anyone painting flats for live theatre will be able to cut costs with those big pots.

It’s not hard to thin tube acrylics to the liquid texture of bottled acrylics for crafts projects. Just add a little water to achieve exactly the texture you want. Acrylics are the great mimic medium - you can use them for crafts like enamels, thin to transparency to use like watercolors, paint heavy bodied pictures as if they were oils and clean up or thin with water. Impasto mediums and special texture gels from Derivan and others extend the variety of effects you can get.

They dry quickly and leave little or no mess if you use a glass, ceramic or other non-porous surface. Gloss and matte mediums are available in the complete painting set but not listed separately at Jerry’s. These paints are compatible with other brands of acrylic paints and mediums, so using Liquitex, Golden or any other acrylic mediums with it should work just as well.

They dry to a very nice semi-gloss finish. If you want a gloss finish or matte finish, get some matte or gloss acrylic medium in any brand you like. Acrylic paints are compatible across brands. SoHo Urban Artist acrylics should work well with any acrylic paints you already have, whether bottled or heavy body tube paints.

A couple of tips for using SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics. Synthetic brushes are best for use with acrylics. Either use the stiff white taklon brushes that have a texture like bristle, or softer golden taklon or nylon brushes for a different look. The stiff ones will leave distinct brush strokes and painterly texture effects. Softer golden Taklon brushes can be used to smooth out all texture and hide your brush strokes for realism.

Don't use natural bristle brushes with any paint that thins with water. The flagged tips will soak water and degrade. The brush loses its stiffness and stops holding as much paint if it's soaked in water. Synthetic imitation bristle brushes stay good and firm and the hairs don't soak the water at all. They're also easier to clean if acrylic paint dries in them and cheaper to replace if ruined irreparably.

Keep your brushes damp at all times - they do dry fast and may stick in the brush hairs if you let brushes dry with paint in them. Rinse brushes in warm or hot water to soften clumps if you make a mistake and get bits of film on them, after loosening it up with Master’s Brush Cleaner cake or a gentle dish detergent. Likewise washing out a palette with warm water will make any dried paint peel up clean, while diluting and dissolving any paint that’s still wet. Don’t let large acrylic skins go down the drain or you’ll clog it though. Peel them off and chuck them in the trash.

Along with the SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics value set, I tested the SoHo Urban Artist Painting Boards that I also received to review. The surface is white, impressed with a very fine canvas pattern simulating portrait grain canvas on a sturdy 2.3mm board. They’re lightweight and didn’t warp while handling, something that can happen even with ATC size boards.

Sizes range from 12” x 16” to 2 1/2” x 3 1/2” ATC boards through several other common sizes including 11” x 14”, 9” x 12”, 6” x 9” and 8” x 10”. They’re sold in packs of five or bulk boxes of 120, 240 or 360. They’re inexpensive and convenient for a prolific painter, good for color studies, practice, display or framing. Prices range from $1.81 for the five-pack of 6” x 9” to $6.35 for the 12” x 16” so these are very inexpensive even in relation to canvas boards.

If they’re framed, it wouldn’t matter that the sides of the painting panels aren’t wrapped. It’s a small thing that bothers me a little about them but this is definitely a bargain product.

For studies, practice and frugal painters, they’ve got a good surface that takes the paint exactly as well as gessoed canvas boards. For ATCs, I might want to run a black or gilded marker around the thick sides to give the edges a nicer look. Testing that with a gold Sharpie, it didn’t take very well but using deep gold metallic gouache worked great. A bottle of metallic gold acrylic would work just as well.

If you want to paint a lot, the combination of SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics and SoHo Urban Artist Painting Boards is a good way to practice without spending a fortune. If you have big projects in mind, they may be a cost effective solution for murals, theatre sets and other very large works. Any frugal painter will have a good time with these products.

Don’t be afraid to botch anything you do with these acrylics because at this price, you can just redo it again and jot the date on the back to record your progress. Because lightfastness isn’t listed for the paints and acid free or archival isn’t listed for the boards, I’d recommend them for preliminary work, decorative work, illustration, practice, leisure painters and students.

Art journals are another excellent use for SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics. Any interior paintings aren’t going to get the kind of sustained light exposure as a wall painting in a sunny room. Another thing to remember is that while lightfastness isn’t listed, many times the non toxic hues are more lightfast than the traditional pigments they replace. They may have different qualities, such as cadmium hues sometimes being less opaque.

The colors mix beautifully, exactly as I expect for the listed pigments. Most of the named pigment colors are lightfast as far as I know, with the exception of Alizarin Crimson. It’s popular with painters but I prefer both the hue and the permanence of Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I was very glad this company's Alizarin Crimson is the modern pigment rather than the historic one.

What I’ve found as a serious painter is that being able to create color studies and preliminary versions of my paintings improves them dramatically. With art supplies, you get what you pay for. There is a reason to pay more for specialty artist grade acrylics with well known brands. Do you really want to spend that much to paint a stage set or a mural in your child’s bedroom? SoHo Urban Artist acrylics are good value for a very low price, enough to let any painter have uninhibited freedom to experiment. The best prices are on the 24 color Value Set and the biggest jars.

One last point. Sometimes even though for years I’ve been purchasing top quality artist grade supplies, I’ll freeze up and hesitate to use them or constrain myself to subjects and techniques I’m already confident with. These handle with the same consistency as other brands of heavy body acrylics, even the most expensive ones I own. When I want to cut loose and try something loony or fool around in my art journals, I’ll definitely reach for SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics. They’re priced for any budget and handle like the best.

It’s the same thing with the boards. Bulk boxes of SoHo Urban Artist Painting Boards means no need to scrape or paint over any failed experiments. Just date it, set it aside, try again and keep the series to appreciate your progress over time. There’s a lot to be said for bulk quantity in budget supplies to stimulate creativity. If you want to become a better painter, get a bulk box of boards in your favorite size. You’ll never hesitate to practice or experiment with that many chances to get it right.

Here's my example painting using SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics on an ATC size SoHo Urban Artist Painting Board. I worked from a photo of some fruit I took months ago back in Arkansas and cropped tonight to create a new ACEO.


Still Life with Violet Curtain by Robert A. Sloan.

Mungyo Gallery Artist's Soft Pastels

Mungyo Gallery Soft Pastels are a discount artist grade brand of medium-soft round soft pastels. Don't mistake these for the Mungyo Gallery Square pastels or the cheaper student grade ones - these are artist grade and claim lightfastness even though they use hues for some mineral colors. The range of 200 is available in a wood box set, various set sizes from 12 on up to 200 and open stock colors can be found at Jerry's Artarama and ASW, same as some other brands like Erengi Art Aspirer oil pastels.

Because they are non toxic, these make a good choice for artists who work around small children or pets. This is a tradeoff. Genuine Cadmium and Cobalt pigments have certain working properties, especially in wet mediums, that aren't duplicated by using other pigments - especially in watercolors, acrylic and oil painting, real Cadmiums are far more opaque than their color-matching hues. This isn't necessarily as much of a problem with soft pastels, all have a dusty consistency.

In some of the more expensive brands, you'll find the hardness of the stick will vary with the working properties of the pigments. Sennelier is well known for using as little binder as possible and not even trying to keep the consistency the same between different pigments - the up side is that you get the pigments you chose and learn to use those colors in their unique ways.

For beginners and for anyone who doesn't have a big collection of pastels, that can also get frustrating. Other artist grade brands will use fillers to "even out" the texture of various pigments. Mungyo Gallery Artist's Soft Pastels have a consistent texture across all the sticks, you won't find one so soft you can barely hold the stick and another one almost like a hard pastel or gritty. Pigment load is pretty good. It's not up there with my expensive hand rolled Unison pastels but it's decent, especially for the price.

Hardness is in a category with Rembrandt and Art Spectrum, of that category I think the greatest pigment load can be found in Art Spectrum... along with a number of toxic mineral pigments that are more dangerous to breathe than the non toxic Mungyo Gallery. So when you choose a brand of soft pastels, it's important to balance health concerns, working style, how much protection you want to use while painting, ventilation and feel.

I'd definitely recommend these as a frugal alternative for beginners over any student grade brand. They're soft enough for easy sketching and blending, their medium texture is versatile and the color range is excellent. They are available in open stock, so it's possible to replace colors used in sets, fill out weak color areas in a mixed-brand collection or put together your individual palette choices. That's another important element in whether an art supply is considered artist grade - can you order fifteen Indigo Tint 3 sticks because you're doing a honking big painting with a vast span of Indigo Tint 3 sky, or are you stuck buying them in sets and getting a lot of colors you might not use?

If you, like me, are teaching a talented, underage artist and want to make sure she or he has artist grade supplies, this type of product is the best thing to start them off with. Toxicity may be more dangerous to young people whose bones and bodies are still growing than to adults, also youth are less likely to wear gloves, use barrier creams, make sure they've got adequate ventilation or wear face masks. They want to get down and make a mess painting, even when they're skilled enough you'd think they're adults. So if you're buying these as a gift for an underage pastelist, both the price and their non toxic hues are in favor of Mungyo Gallery Artist's Soft Pastels. These are the round ones.

I haven't tried the Squares. Those are half the price, which to me suggests that they might have twice the filler even though they are listed as lightfast. Those are priced and shaped comparable to Loew Cornell soft pastels, the original Blick student grade soft pastels, Alphacolors and similar products. These round, labeled sticks are much closer to Rembrandt in feel than any other brand I've tried.

The wood box is probably a veneer over sturdy MDF like the Mungyo Semi-Hard set, with a second tray to hold all the colors. I would recommend it as a sturdy box even if it's not the type of solid wood boxes that pricier brands like Winsor & Newton or Sennelier produce - it also doesn't cost as much and the one I have with the Semi-Hard set is just as good for protecting the sticks.

The cardboard box sets are packaged the same way as those 64 clever little Mungyo Gallery half sticks that I love for a sketch set. A sturdy cardboard box has two trays filled with slotted foam and foam padding on top to protect the sticks, then for added protection against the box falling open, it slides into a cardboard sleeve. If you're putting a set on edge inside your backpack for sketching outdoors, that sleeve can be a lot of help! Even if it drops off a shelf, it's less likely to fall open and the sticks are less likely to break with all that padding.

Here's the color range of the 60 color set that I bought. It has a reasonable number of darks and tints for a 60 color range, a good spectrum and good choices in warm and cool neutrals. I used a piece of gray Canson Mi-Tientes for the swatches so the values on the tints would be easier to see. One gray almost precisely matches the paper, but the white shows up very clean and strong, distinct from the tints.



The size of the box on this 60 color cardboard set is pretty convenient, it'd fit in any backpack or messenger bag for outdoor sketching and painting. That may be another good use for Mungyo Gallery Artist soft pastels - because they're not toxic pigments, they may do less damage to the environment when puffs of dust come off your easel. You're not poisoning the squirrels and birds with them or putting Cadmiums into water runoff.

Mungyo Gallery Soft Pastel rounds are often on sale at both Jerry's Artarama and ASW. Watch for sale prices on the sets and on open stock. If you want a lot of colors for a very low budget, give these a try with a small set or a few chosen open stock colors to see how you like them. Some of my friends hated them because both Art Spectrum and Rembrandt beat them for pigment concentration. I enjoyed them and would be very happy to use this set outdoors or over at the farrier school to sketch the horses. Less concern about toxicity balances against the stronger pigment concentration in Rembrandt and Art Spectrum for a medium-soft pastel.

They handled very well on Canson mi-Tientes, either smooth or textured side. They smudge easily, are quite softer than any of my hard pastels and will carry several layers even on unsanded paper.

For best results in soft pastel painting rather than quick sketching, I recommend getting some hard pastels, some medium pastels of this type of hardness and some hand-rolled or super-soft pastels such as Sennelier half sticks, Schminke, Unison or Richeson Hand-Rolled. For a bargain startup, Gallery Semi-Hard, Gallery Artist Soft Pastels (round) and some Richeson Hand-Rolled pastels might make a good initial investment. They're better than student grade, in the artist grade category, but in pastels especially where most of what you're paying for is pigment load versus filler, you'll get what you pay for.

They definitely beat the other super-bargain brand I've invested in - the Yarka Soft Pastels. Mostly on palette. Texture is similar but the Yarka palette has serious gaps especially in pure tone yellows, oranges, reds, violets and strong greens. Yarka's got some good blues and is strong on gradated tints, but often the brightest color in a pigment range is still a mid tint rather than a pure tone. So if you already have some Yarka soft pastels, you might consider filling out the range with full intensity Mungyo Gallery Soft Pastels. They're close enough in texture that they'd play well together and be interchangeable.

Yarka has been recategorized as Student Grade for palette range issues, although the Yarka ones do include genuine Cadmiums and Cobalts. Don't mix them if you're buying these for an underage friend or student, Mungyo Gallery Soft Pastels are better for anyone who may have toxicity issues.

Below is a sketch of my granddaughter's dragon toy as a flying dragon on pale yellow Canson Mi-Tientes, textured side, done with Gallery Mungyo Artist Soft Pastels. These and a pad of Canson mi-Tientes would be a great sketching combination.

Derwent Waterbrush

Derwent Sketch Kit gift set included a Derwent waterbrush.

Derwent Fortnight #11: Waterbrush

Derwent has created a waterbrush as good as the original Japanese versions. I first tried a waterbrush when I got one in a Sakura Koi pocket set of watercolors. I loved it for its convenience -- a nylon round watercolor brush with a hollow soft plastic handle. Fill the handle with water and you have convenience.

The brush stays wet. Just touch watercolor pans or tips of watersoluble pencils to pick up color and you can paint. It means not going to the sink to wash out brushes and refill water cups if I'm having a bad day. It means not having to carry a water bottle if I go out and want to sketch in watermedia.

I loved that first one and bought several more in different brands. Unfortunately, some of the brands other than Sakura gave me problems. Water would drip too fast through the brush or not come out without some serious squeezing, the flow would be uneven. One brush lost bristles and went from too little water to too much. They're not always well made.

My original Sakura Koi ones from the small and large pocket sets were perfect, so is the Niji one I tried.

Right up with them is the Derwent waterbrush, with its elegantly shaped reservoir. Derwent redesigned the handle with a graceful curve and a little extra width up near the tip. This does two things. It holds more water and if you set it down on a slanted surface like a drafting table, it won't roll off because the fat bit is flattened. The top snaps neatly onto the back end so it won't get lost, something that I can't always do with some others.

Derwent actually takes top prize for my favorite waterbrush because of that little innovation. None of the rest have the no-roll extra width design. Sakura and Niji come very close with good products that have excellent flow, last a good long time,
and serve the purpose just as well. So there are three brands I'd recommend and Derwent tops the list because of its handle shape.

You can also fill a Derwent waterbrush with solvents such as odorless mineral spirits or Bestine rubber cement thinner. Don't use the same waterbrush for thinners and water, it's like using the same brush for oils and watercolors. Keep one for watermedia and one for thinners. Using a Derwent waterbrush with thinner will let you use your Coloursoft or Artists' or other colored pencils as if they were watersoluble, give you wash effects between layers or to smooth a final layer.

My Derwent Waterbrush came in a Derwent Sketch Kit gift set. I found it on Clearance at Blick, where I think it was one of those nice annual limited-edition gift sets. I bought it to get a dozen spare Graphitint pencils in something like a Global Classic case, and was intrigued by the waterbrush. It included Derwent Watersoluble Sketching Pencils in Light Wash, Medium Wash and Dark Wash as well as three values of Derwent Charcoal Pencils and a dozen Graphitints.

It also has a very nice hardbound sketchbook with perforated pages in case I wanted to rip out a good sketch to give someone.

Derwent Watersoluble Sketching pencils are great. I like watersoluble graphite pencils, they allow me to fill areas in graphite sketches quickly with a wash or to paint a monochrome in pure graphite. Derwent Watersoluble Sketching Pencils come in three degrees of hardness.

Light Wash is HB, your standard pencil hardness. Medium Wash is 4B, a good soft pencil for darkening or doing sketches that scan better. Dark Wash is 8B, almost the softest a graphite pencil can get, wonderful for smudging or washing. With the Derwent Waterbrush, it became easy to paint with graphite just touching the points of these pencils with the wet brush tip.

Here's an example painted mostly in Medium Wash and Dark Wash Derwent Watersoluble Sketching Pencils with the Derwent Waterbrush. I drew no sketch lines anywhere on this, it's strictly a wash sketch done with the brush. Whether you like painting or washing over drawings, the Derwent Waterbrush is one of those small accessories that become essential as soon as you try one.

It is a bit hard to find in the USA, but worth the price if you see a Derwent waterbrush by itself or included in a gift set. For some reason it's slow or impossible to get some Derwent accessories in the USA despite how good they are and how popular they'd be if available. This is something to do with the distribution process.

So if you really want one, hunt for it and possibly be prepared to place an order with a UK online or mail order company. Then again you can always put together a list of all the Derwent items you can't find in the USA and do that all at once in an out of country order. It's worth paying a bit extra in shipping or price for this one because of its quality.


Pine Cone and Pillbox
4" x 6"
Derwent Sketch and Wash graphite watersoluble pencils
Painted with Derwent Waterbrush on Derwent A6 hard cover sketchbook paper.